7 install - major snafuuy

An academic affiliate of M$ sold me what turns out to be an upgrade install of 7. I need to get 7 installed asap on a drive that's already partitioned so I can load personal academic work, SQL server, and be sure everything works before school ends.

A little background: I use a drive bay and have a 300GB w/7 Pro (about 5 years old and not sure how long drive will last), a 320GB w/XP for gaming and a newer 500GB with partitions and backed up data. I want to eventually dual boot a fresh 7 and a server flavor like exhange on it (and use excess space on each drive to store BU images. I'll also burn the images.)

Q - I've read how I can presumedly double install 7 using the UPG media IF done on a blank drive. Does anyone know how I can do so on a partition?

Tools I have to work with: ISO burns of UPG XP & UPG 7 Pro 64b, official/academic disc of XP Pro and UPG 7 Pro 64b and an R.C. of 7. I'm afraid if I load my academic XP and then try UPG that, it'll disable my working XP when 7 'subsumes' it. I also can borrow a 7 Home UPG disc if I find a way to not hose it's license.

When I try install 7 UPG on the partition install does not find the drive, gives a white window and asks for a driver for the hard drive. Samsung/Seagate says there is none.

Q2 - Is there a way to load XP and use the UPG disc without hosing the XP license already in use? Or use the R.C. and UPG to get a complete 7? I've seen the slmgr - rearm for the trial period. My problem is the install process with these UPG discs.

You guys seem to be the pros from Dover on this stuff. I hesitate to use 'hacks' and such but your site seems safe and knowledgable. Swear if I can solve this I'm loading Linux Mint on an old PATA to surf with and forgoing MS updates.

When I try install 7 UPG on the partition install does not find the drive, gives a white window and asks for a driver for the hard drive. Samsung/Seagate says there is none.

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It's not the hard drive that's missing the driver, it's the controller that is most likely in AHCI mode and therefore doesn't work with a generic driver. If you currently have a working installation, look in device manager for the controller; it's probably listed as a SATA or AHCI controller in "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers". Then find a recent driver download from the manufacturer web site and use that during the installation.